Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that offers flexible copyright licences for creative works. Imagebank is using some of these licences for the images contained within it.

Creative Commons licences are based on copyright.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection that applies to all creative works.

Books, music, photographs and films are just some examples of works protected by copyright.

Copyright protects the work and ensures that you, the author or creator of the work, maintain control over how and where the work is used.

What is a Creative Commons licence?

A Creative Commons licence gives you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work.

The creator of any copyrighted work can attach a Creative Commons licence to their work if they wish.

Offering your work under a Creative Commons license does not mean giving up your copyright. It means offering some of your rights to any member of the public under certain conditions.

Creative Commons licenses attach to the work and authorise everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it consistent with the license.

All the images in ImageBank are covered by a Creative Commons licence so if you upload your photo to the website, you should be sure you understand how Creative Commons works before you do so. In particular, make sure you are the person who owns the copyright in the work. In practice this usually means you’re the person who took the photo. Things to think about before you apply a Creative Commons licence to your work http://creativecommons.org/about/think

Is there more than one type of Creative Commons licence?Yes, there are several but at the moment IMAGEBANK is using just one of these.